Iran's Theocracy: Letting God decide the election

This is a Times Online podcast.

The Bugle, audio newspaper for a visual world.

Hello, Buglers.

Welcome to issue 79 of the Bugle, the world's audio newspaper, for the week beginning Monday, the 22nd of June, 2009, with me, Andy Zaltzman, catching some rays in the summertime city itself, London, and in the city formerly known as New Amsterdam, now going by the moniker of New York, but which surely in the not too useful future will simply be known as John Oliver City.

It's the second best egg scrambler in the bugle.

John Oliver.

Awesome early Smack Talk, Adam.

Oh, I did some good ones this morning.

Oh, yeah, I'll ban you that.

You scramble a good egg.

Thanks for watching.

Splash of milk.

Low heat.

That's right.

I'm back from a weekend at Bonnaroo, Bonnaroo, Andy, where people successfully ignored the state of the economy to travel to a field in Tennessee and essentially end a four-day fish concert.

And that is literally fish with a pH.

And while I was there, Andy, I saw Bruce Springsteen in concert for the first time.

Just an unbelievable experience.

The single most uplifting thing I've ever witnessed.

And I have seen the breakfast club and I've seen goals that I've scored.

The man is 60 years old, Andy, and he played a three-hour set with no break and unbelievable rate.

He put you to shame.

You, personally, to shame.

Also, while I was there, I got to sing a duet with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

I don't know if you know him, Andy.

No, I'm not.

It's a rubber dog.

I think you'd like it, it's a rubber dog.

And he does put down comedy.

It's very funny.

And I've got to sing a song with him called Cats are.

The missing word there being the bleep we use to describe the BMP.

Also, and finally, Andy, it's this opening section.

Strap in.

GQ is out.

Oh

and I'm pretty sure I've been airbrushed

yeah I don't really know what's happened to my face it looks smooth my cheeks have gone all hollow so I've got it I've got to give them credit though they have genuinely tried to polish a turd and it worked because what they left with on those pages is a very very shiny turd in a suit and a Louis Vuitton watch Did you get to keep the watch?

Of course I tried.

So do I do I get to keep it not that I would ever be able to wear it, but I thought, you know.

And they were, absolutely not.

No, give it to that man over there.

Okay, fine.

Well, John, I've got a celebrity story this way.

You might have been hanging out with Bruce Springsteen and an insulting puppet dog.

But on Monday, I met Mike Atherton.

Take that, our American listeners.

Mike Atherton, the former England cricket captain.

He's got...

a good 7,000 plus test runs, more than any of the D-listers you keep crapping on about.

Bill Clinton this.

George Clooney that.

I played Hopscotch with Snoop Doggy Dog last weekend.

Me and Madeline Albright going to a a drive-in movie together.

Well, how many of them have ever saved a test match for their country by batting unbeaten for 11 hours against a formidable South African patio sack?

I don't know.

Three?

No, none, John.

None.

But Atherton did.

Did you get on with him?

Yeah, top guy.

Big legal fan.

Do you think you're...

I'm sure that's not the case.

Did you go out for bacon sandwiches with him afterwards?

No.

How was Snoop?

Did you get to meet Snoop in the end?

I didn't meet Snoop, Andy.

Snoop, I think, is relatively aloof.

So you have no hip-hop story but I have a hip-hop story because my mother had a hip replacement on Wednesday.

But there was a glitch and she was actually fitted with a bionic hip, which would be great because she's only got one bionic hip, which means that she can now run very, very fast in increasingly tight circles.

There's not a lot of use unless you're trying to round up a three-legged sheep into an open manhole.

In other news, my booster arrived 30 days and 30 nights after I ordered it.

Halle honking blue.

It doesn't work, but I've got it.

That's the important thing.

What's the booster again?

Well, it says like a better aerial for my wireless router.

That's the booster signal, but it's just the same as the old one.

I'm just glad it's safe.

So, this is issue 79 of the bugle.

So, do expect this episode to be pure gold.

79 being the atomic number of gold.

79, of course, also the number of times Nikita Khrushchev pretended to press the big red button as a joke in Politburo meetings during the Cuban missile crisis.

So, who thinks we should nuke them?

All square, my casting vote.

Oop ah!

Just kidding.

What was that?

The ending.

You think, oh, shoot!

Hey, a fly's landed on that red button.

Hey, yo!

He flew off.

E

okay, question number one: fingers on buzzers.

Which Soviet leader is about to become the first leader in this country, city, to start a nuclear war?

Just kidding, guys.

Lighten up.

And let's go back into it.

Thanks, mate.

I've already got into the.

I've been reading Khrushchev's autobiography

called Nikita, My Story.

Right.

As always, a section is going in the bin.

In fact, last week there was no section in the bin.

This was because of the cost of audio printing.

The audio for the bugle is now such that, like other audio newspapers, we're having to reduce the number of separate sections we publish.

But this does make the bugle easier and more convenient to listen to on a crowded train.

It means you can listen to a whole episode without having to elbow someone in the face whilst trying to check your share prices.

But this week in the bin, a special Father's Day section.

As we record, it's the 99th anniversary of the first ever Father's Day in 1910.

This formalised an informal Victorian-era Father's Day on the third Sunday in June, traditionally the only day of the year on which fathers would talk to their children other than for their weekly spankings.

Jesus, of course, used to quip, hey guys, for me, every day is Father's Day, right?

You get what I'm saying?

Or am I going to have to spell it out in a fing parable again, you obtuse bastards?

Of course, sceptics and non-believers took his everyday as Father's Day to mean that he'd fathered at least 365 different children.

And the rest is history, or perhaps the rest is badly written historical fiction.

So in our Father's Day section, we advise you different ways to show your daddy that you love him.

One, tell him you love him.

It's cheap, simple and if you catch him in the right mood, not necessarily too embarrassing.

Two, build a 20-meter high concrete statue of your father outside his front door.

Make it look heroic, show him in the process of wrestling a professional crocodile, or rescuing Maggie Gillenhof from the evil clutches of Stalin, or winning the Monaco Grand Prix on a homemade tricycle.

Or three, show your dad how much you love him by paying the ransom his kidnappers are demanding for his release.

And for fathers, advice on how to remind your children that it's Father's Day.

One, lie on the floor weeping, or two, stand on your kid's bedroom window ledge, clawing at the glass and growling until they give you a card or a Father's Day present.

Something that dads like, such as socks, a flash car, a mistress, or gift vouchers for an online barbecue site.

You email in a photo of a raw sausage, and just 20 minutes later, they email you back a photo of a burnt sausage.

Who said the internet and summer could never get along?

Team Matilda made me a Father's Day card at nursery this week.

Kind of collage, a bit like like kind of early Matisse, I guess,

on top of her heart that being painted on.

And then did she write anything on it?

Well, she did.

When I picked her up from nursery,

the card was there, and I said, Oh, is that for me?

And she said, No, it's Tilda's card.

And I said, But I want the card.

And she said, No, it's Tilda's card.

I said, What, Tilda's card for Daddy?

No, she said, It's Tilda's card for Tilda.

Now, inevitably, when there's a two and a half-year-old and her father clashing like this,

there were tears.

No,

I wept.

I want it.

I want my my card.

It says, Daddy, happy Father's Day, love from Matilda in suspiciously adult handwriting.

I want my fing card.

Give me the fing card while you're walking home.

And she said, No, it's Tilda's card.

So looks like she's gonna have to pay her own way through university.

Top story this week, give me an I.

Give me an R.

Give me an A.

Give me an N.

Give me a country in complete chaos.

What have you got?

Iran!

Woo!

Well, Andy, was it ever in doubt?

Perhaps we were guilty of being a little naive last week, implying that there was absolutely any chance of Ahmadinejad losing that election.

Of course there wasn't.

He is never more powerful than when being comprehensively defeated by his opponent.

Iran's election results came in a surprising hour after the polls closed, as apparently it only takes an hour to count the votes of 80% of the Iranian population of voting age.

And the results came in, a landslide, 11 million vote victory for the man in the really red corner.

What a win, Andy.

Not so much a come from behind victory as a stay behind victory.

Yeah, he surprisingly romped home with 63% of the vote.

Since when, pre-vote favourite Mousavi and his supporters, it has to be said from a neutral point of view, John, they've been really bad losers about it.

Really bad.

I mean, one of the most spectacular displays of refusing to congratulate your opponent on their victory.

When I was taught at school, at the end of a match, after you've lost, you shake hands, you say, well played, you buy your opponent a mug of cocoa, and you get on with your life.

You don't go marching in the streets, waving placards, chanting slogans, and demanding the overthrow of the government, and that the will of the people will be obeyed.

That's just that's how we were brought up in Britain.

This is the beauty, though, Andy, of having a system which is part democracy, part theocracy.

It just works great.

People got to vote.

That was the democracy part.

80% turnout.

Excellent.

And then this is when the theocracy part kicks in.

Sometimes God knows who you want to vote for better than you do.

So he swoops in and he tidies everything up.

The illusion of choice with the security of being on God's side.

Perfect.

Of course, it's obviously quite a major reaction from opposition supporters in Iran.

But I think I've got to remember, John.

It's only an election.

These things come and go.

I don't care if he thinks it's an election that's as rigged as an 18th 18th-century ship that's just one of who's got the most masts, ropes, sails, and spars competition.

Oh, that is forced.

Yep, thanks, Matt.

Is that a compliment?

Well, I'll take that as a compliment.

But I guess, you know, suspicions were aroused, weren't they, John?

I guess when you blast to a surprisingly landslidic victory, announcing the results in an unusual way with voting patterns that no one had predicted that varied little from province to province, then start blocking the media and the internet, arresting opposition politicians and activists, violently suppressing protesters, and perhaps most tellingly, not really celebrating your victory as you would expect someone who's just achieved a momentous win against the odds to to celebrate.

I guess suspicions do arise.

There's just a few little pointers there.

Akhudidadad did seem to disobey the fundamental rule of rigging an election.

Keep it close.

Now, he needed 50% to win, Andy.

Obviously, you can't go 51%.

That just looks too suspicious.

So instead, you've got to go somewhere in the mid-50s.

Not, and I'll repeat, not claim that you won 62% of the vote, including your opponent's hometown, where he ended up having more campaign workers workers than votes now i'm not sure if we actually have any buglers in iran andy um or certainly that can listen to it at the moment but if we do please get in touch and let us know how you are i'm guessing that you're pretty

angry but if you could just confirm that emotion that would be great unsurprisingly iran has clamped down on foreign journalists and usually that would be the end of that you know we'd be in a north korea situation lots of wild speculation on tv maybe a couple of satellite photos but this time the reinforcements of modern technology stepped to the front line.

The twin soldiers of Twitter and YouTube answered their planet's calling.

People in protest used their cell phones to shoot footage and then put it on the internet.

All it took was a potential Iranian revolution to find a practical use for internet video.

And I would like to hereby issue a public apology to the piano playing cat, to the teenage boy receiving a nut shot from a wiffleball bat, and to the fat lady falling off a table.

All of your clumsy attempts at entertainment were in fact vital experiments in the development of this communications tool.

That's very much the John the Baptists to the Jesus of the Iranian village.

Exactly.

And that is in no way too highfalutin a reference.

The government has now attempted to block parts of the internet in Iran, resulting in YouTube traffic being down 90% there.

I'm not on Twitter, Andy.

In fact, I even find it hard to say the word out loud.

But it's clear that it has done a great deal of good here.

There were even reports that the State Department in the US asked that Twitter delay scheduled maintenance work so that the Iranians could continue to communicate.

And in fact, YouTube spokesman Scott Rubin said, I'm likening this to the Velvet Revolution in the Czech Republic, where all these barriers are placed in front of people and they keep marching.

Only this time, it's happening online and it's happening on YouTube.

Steady on, Scotty!

Velvet Revolution!

Your website features people showing the world how many grapes they can fit in their mouth.

Let's not get carried away here.

that's how vaclav havel got famous in the first place wasn't it 85 grapes with the skin intact that's right never breaking the skin and the big ones as well not the little seedless ones to be fair to armatinajad though he has uh offered a partial recount although this is going to be difficult to have a recount given that the votes were never counted in the first place i mean it's a bit like me demanding a rematch against dead boxer sunny listen

and The opposition movement is demanding the election be annulled and rerun, which the government are understandably reluctant to agree to to because it's a bit of a pain in the ass fixing one election in a country as big as Iran and have to do it twice in quick succession.

You can understand that they're a bit bored by the prospect.

Of course, their complaints range from a shortage of ballot papers, the barring of candidates from polling stations, and ungrippable voting pencils, all the way up to the wholesale creation of an entirely fictitious result.

Gripe, gripe, gripe.

Even the Iranian football team made a brave public stand.

Yeah, that's what got me into the story, John.

It was great.

You got out of a sporting angle.

Otherwise, it means nothing to me.

Well, that's your way in.

Six of the players involved in their World Cup qualifier against South Korea wore green wristbands in solidarity with Musavi supporters.

It was a truly inspiring gesture.

These are men who cannot hide their identity.

Not only are their faces on camera, but their names are on the back of their shirts.

The game finish won all, but you have to ask, would Iran have won the game if the election results had been different?

And the answer is yes.

That is the power of football.

You say that with absolute confidence, and yet you actually have nothing to base that on.

No.

I guess that doesn't take your confidence at work.

No, it doesn't.

I mean, logically, that whole sentence made almost no sense.

But, you know, I've still said it, and I've said it with my balls.

Thanks for that,

it wasn't...

It wasn't only the Musavi supporters who made good use of modern technology.

The Ahmadinejad supporting national newspaper Kayan printed a picture of a pro-Akhamdinejad rally that had been hugely photoshopped to double the number of people there.

I don't know if you saw this, Andy.

It was absolutely fantastic.

They picked it out online just showing how photoshopped it was.

There were like four images of the same group of people spread around with the same flag.

Fantastic work.

Had the smack of GQ about it.

Let's just put it that way.

So what of the hotly disputed winner of this election that he clearly lost?

You'd expect him to be frantic.

Andy's country is teetering on the brink of chaos.

His grip on power seems increasingly tenuous.

But incredibly, he has seemed not only unsurprised by his fake victory, but then unbelievably calm and happy.

If anything, happier than he was before.

It's almost as if no one has actually told him that his country is on the edge of bursting into flames.

And Akhanjidijad went on state television and said that people had voted for his policies of justice, presumably before pausing and then adding, Wink!

Oh, you got me!

I'll rig the whole election.

But what are you going to do, eh?

It's classic Mahmood.

It's so me.

Come on.

You'd miss me if I was gone.

Come on.

So this is a hot off the press update.

And when we say off the press, we mean it in the Iranian sense.

It's not going in the press.

Come on.

But Ayatollah, what would you have told her?

Ayatollah, the election was fine.

Did that cut out?

British news now and the full details of the MP's expenses have finally been revealed by the House of Commons authorities, but controversially much of the detail has been blacked out, prompting yet more howls of Oh, God, I can't go on.

For the love of all known gods, make it stop.

In other British news, another government minister has resigned in the wake of the MP's expenses scandal.

Kitty Usher, the Under Secretary of State for tedious news stories or something, has quit after it was revealed that, I don't know, she built a giant golden statue of a fallopian tube in her home to try and bring fertility to her constituents.

Will that do?

Oh, I hate life.

Let's move on, Andy.

This story holds no joy for you.

Shark news now, and Andy, the Mexican Navy says it has seized more than a ton of cocaine.

Can I just interrupt you there, John?

Any story that begins with the words, the Mexican Navy, has my full attention.

Absolutely.

So enjoy it.

Pour yourself a glass of wine.

The Mexican Navy says it seized more than a ton of cocaine, which was hidden inside the carcasses of more than 20 frozen sharks.

What a sentence!

It's got everything, Andy.

Frozen sharks, Class A drugs, and the Mexican Navy.

Does sound like something that's come out a bit wrong from an internet translation site?

This is absolutely brilliant, this story, Andy.

Maybe it's why Damian Hurst, the Lidomide shark, sold for so much money.

It was packed with heroin.

Modern art is clearly just a front for the international drugs trade.

That makes much more sense.

The art that wins the Turner Prize every year is immediately ground down, cut with baking soda, and on the streets within two hours of being announced.

Cartels are apparently always coming up with new and increasingly creative ways of smuggling drugs into the US, Andy.

And I think they've just found the best one.

Usually, you'd wrap drugs in a condom and stick it up your,

you know.

Now, you can stuff the drugs into a frozen shark, put that in a condom, and shove it up your.

You know, it's a perfect crime.

Unless I'm misunderstanding it.

Well, I guess, John, this just goes to show that most of us generally associate Mexico with three things: things.

One, overhead drawings of men in sombreros riding bicycles.

Two, ludicrously ambitious overhead kicks.

And three, pernicious drug cartels in the sea of human devastation they leave in their wake.

Well the ones I feel sorry for here John are the sharks because they're vulnerable John.

They're the victims in this and you can kind of see how they get lured into it.

You know they think, oh this guy says he loves me, he just wants me to swallow one plastic bag full of talcum powder for him in case it pops in his suitcase.

Then he'll take me away to a better place and treat me like a princess and feed me lots of nice seals to eat and all my favourite snacks.

Just not sure why he needs to kill me and deep freeze me first, but I'm sure he's got my best interests at heart and he's such a persuasive man.

That's really where the drug trade gets nasty.

I've got an official Bugle Mexico joke.

Okay.

To go with this story.

Hey, I'm going on my summer holidays to Mexico.

Ah, Yucatan.

Yeah, I could, but I'm not really into sunbathing.

I'm quite pale-skinned as well, so I've got to be super careful.

Thought I might go see some of the old Aztec temples and sell them by some sombreros.

Looking forward to some hot chili nachos, though.

Mexico?

Sure does, it can go right through you.

But if you regulate your diet with some nice meaty chimichangas, it balances out and keeps you regular.

Would it be nice to spend some quality time with the wife, though?

Guadalajara?

Well, let's just see how things go.

I'll take her out for dinner first and take it from there.

I don't want to rush into Guadalajara until we're both ready.

Monterey?

Certainly not, sir.

I'm a gentleman.

Andy, I'd like you to be known that that is the official bugle joke of your half of the bugle.

Bugle feature section now, and it's Wimbledon.

And this year, John.

Come on, Tim!

Come on, Tim!

It's more Wimbledon than ever.

Because British tennis fans, John, have been waiting since the last war, but the wait is over.

Britain now has a player who definitely could win Wimbledon.

The wait for that player is over.

Andy Murray's the first Briton since the war who could definitely win Wimbledon.

Last year, he became the first Britain since Tin Henman, who definitely might win Wimbledon.

Before that, of course, there was Jeremy Bates who fitted into the category, would probably win Wimbledon if a virulent stomach virus to which he was immune ran through the dressing room and incapacitated the other 127 players in the drawer.

So Murray could definitely win, John.

And accordingly, the British media have been pumping the hot air balloon of hype with every last piece of hydrogen they can find before letting it zoom into the air of SW19 and hope it doesn't hinden burg straight down onto the new roof.

So I guess the question, John, is: will Britain's Andy Murray win the trophy that the Queen and country demands of him?

Or will the young Scots fail all of us who pay the taxes that fund his kilt-wearing nation?

That's the question.

Oh, Tom didn't like that.

He did not like that.

Standing in Murray's way, of course, are Raphael Nadell, injury permitting the mighty Musselmajorkin, Roger Federer, the ballistic bombshell from Basel, and world number 89, Tamuraz Gabashvili of Russia.

Although, if the big Gab wins, I will personally break into Buckingham Palace dressed as Florence Nightingale and demand to sleep with Prince Philip.

There you go.

I've now given the tennis neutral an outsider to root for in the first week of the tournament.

If Federer wins, of course, he'll overtake Sam Pras' record of 14 Grand Slam titles.

And thus become the first person from Switzerland to be demonstrably the best ever in the world at anything.

So that's going to be a great, great moment for the Swiss nation.

In the women's draw, John, well, it seems hard to imagine that the 15-year-old British girl, Laura Robson, won't won't back up her girls' title from last year with the women's title this year.

If she doesn't, she'll have let the entire country down.

How could she, John?

I've planned my entire emotional summer around a British woman winning Wimbledon.

Bloody teenagers.

No respect for their elders these days.

Of course, if you think of women's tennis these days, generally you think of three things, Justin Enan's mesmeric backhand, now sadly departed from the game.

That picture of the bird scratching her ass and grunting.

But what do the grunts mean, other than the fact that the player is trying to gain an unfair advantage over their opponent?

Well, I spoke to a top grunt interpreter this week, John, who deciphered some of the most complex mating calls in the animal and bird kingdoms before he turned to tennis grunts.

And he told me that if you replay Monica Sellez's entire career as an audio track, the grunts make up Morse code of the entire works of Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope.

Really?

And now it's time for the You Be the Umpire section.

You tell us, is this serve in or out?

What do you reckon, John?

It sounded in to me, Andy.

Well, we'll find out the answer next week.

Very popular thing, Wimbledon around the world.

I've done some investigations to what top world politicians most like about Wimbledon.

Robert Mugabe, what he most likes is he thinks that the sound the ball makes when it hits the netting after an ace is kind of funky.

Controversial former Indonesian despot Sue Harto, who used to really like it when the ball hit the netcord judge.

But since technology replaced the human in judging netcore decisions, as it will eventually replace the human in all aspects of life, be warned, tennis is a harbinger of the destruction of humanity by its own computerised spawn.

But anyway, before his death in 2008, Suharto's favourite thing about tennis had become when power serves down the middle hit the middle line judge in the stomach whilst they're trying to shout fault.

What a vindictive little man.

And also the Austrian leader Heinz Fischer likes the way that the women's trophy is a big plate because women like eating food, but the men's trophy is a big cup because men like drinking beer.

What's up with that?

he says, History is going to be made this year.

Whoever wins, Murray, Federer, Gabashvili, or someone else, history will be made.

I guess we'll just have to wait two weeks to find out whether it's the kind of history that anyone in Britain gives a flying shit about.

And also, the kind of history that involves a little-known comedian being prosecuted for trespassing on royal property, impersonating a 19th-century nurse, and being inappropriately lued with a vulnerable pensioner.

Your emails now, and this one comes from Danny Dyer in Sherwood, Oregon, who writes, on the subject, your work is meaningless.

Always nice to be reminded of that.

I don't deny that at all.

Danny Dyer writes: Dear Andy, recently I downloaded an illegal copy of your novel, Does Anything Eat Bankers and 53 Other Indispensable Questions for the Credit Crunched?

Still available in a decreasing number of bookshops.

If you look incredibly hard, I downloaded this for free, and naturally I refuse to read it.

How offensive do you find this?

How offensive do you find this?

Well, I mean, I find the fact that he downloaded it for free rather than buying a hard copy.

He's deprived me out of around about 40 pence that I would have earned had he bought it in the shop.

Is that what you earned?

I think it's roughly about that.

So, you know, I only made

a couple of million out of it in the end.

But the fact that, you know, if you're going to download it for free illegally, I'd much rather you didn't then read it because then effectively you might as well not have downloaded it at all.

So I'd much rather you'd either bought it and read it or downloaded it and didn't read it.

Money is not in book sales, Andy.

It's always in the big screen Hollywood adaptation featuring Bruce Willis.

Yeah, well.

And I'm sure it's going to get picked up.

It's interesting you should say that, John, because Dan added a PS.

John, I also downloaded a copy of The Love Guru.

Oh, dear, touche.

Turned it to a DVD and promptly tossed it in the microwave.

In the microwave?

Not even in the bin.

He was willing to damage his own microwave to be sure of its destruction.

Fair enough.

Yeah, I think he probably enjoyed it it more than the average viewer.

That's true.

I think your computer might have a virus having downloaded that as well.

You might also be on some list somewhere.

Anyone that downloads that movie is probably on the list of potential psychopaths.

What am I saying, Andy?

It was a great movie.

Have you seen it yet?

I've not seen it.

I can't believe you haven't seen it.

Well, Johnny, I respect you and I want to keep it that way.

Yeah, actually, do you know what?

It might be for the best.

But someone did give me a bugle listener gave me a boot length copy at a gig I did

in Cambridge.

If ever I'm dying, Andy, I think the best time is for you to watch it on my deathbed.

And then at the end, you'll just put a pillow over my face.

Sorry, mate.

I should have done this years ago.

Great email here from Connie Evans, who says, simply, the subject line, a little bit of entertainment for my favourite immature Brits.

The email is simply this.

I give you the lovely website dedicated to things that look like cock and balls.

Enjoy, Connie.

I will simply say this, Andy.

It's a simple instruction for buglers.

All you need to do is go to the website thingsthatlooklikecock and balls.com.

That's cock and balls, the letter N rather than and.

I thought we should make that clear.

Cock and balls, that's right.

I don't know if that means that things that look like cock and balls was taken, but cock and balls.

Seldom, Andy, do you

see something where supposedly you think that's why the development of, I guess, television, the screen technology, certainly of computers, and probably of the human mind.

So that's it's all led led up to the internet the most incredible information source being formed you go that's why it's the apex of the internet andy things that look like coffin balls I only just clicked on it now and saw the front page and it is a masterpiece that's right a pancake a bicycle seat there's an there's an amazing one of the uh

something that looks like a cock and balls left by purel hand sanitizer after being lit on fire on a desk and wiped to the floor

a hole in one of spontaneous cock and balls creation they describe it as listen this is outstanding this website.

This is what the internet is for.

It's not for publicising your little revolution in Iran.

It's for putting up pictures of stuff that looks a bit like a cock and balls.

And also, some excellent pedantry still coming in.

This one comes in from Torah Sinding Beckadal

on the subject errata for episode 78.

Dear Andy, John, and Tom.

Hey, nice to get you involved, mate.

It is.

78 RPM records, he writes, are usually shellac.

Although in World War II,

substitutes, wax on cardboard usually usually were used, but never vinyl.

So there you go.

He's picked me up on

my

channel 78.

Much love nonetheless.

That sounds a bit half-assed, actually.

Do keep your emails flooding in.

And, well, there was a blog.

There was a blog this week.

Admittedly, Tom wrote it, and a very fine job he did on it as well.

Albeit slightly too full of barbs in my direction.

Well, I'm saying, Tom, is just probably worth checking under your car with a mirror before you set off in the morning.

Wow.

I do anyway.

Bugle sport now and what a massive weekend of sport around the world, John.

The US Open golf, of course, near you in New York State.

But if the weather continues as it started yesterday, this is set to become the first sub-aquatic major golf tournament since a clerical error led to the 1953 British Open being played at the bottom of the Mobius Trench in the Pacific Ocean instead of at Royal Birkdale.

Tiger Woods, of course, won the US Open last year essentially on one leg.

This year, back from injury, he's going one step further and playing the entire tournament standing on his head, gripping his clubs between his feet.

I need a challenge, said Tiger.

I've proved over and over again I can win standing on my feet, but can I do it standing on my head?

That's the ultimate golf challenge in golf.

No, it isn't, but

I like his style.

Also, it's the British Lions kick off their series against South Africa on the first of a three-test series.

One of the biggest things in rugby is America excited about this.

Now you need to explain this, Andy, because no one knows what the British...

What it sounds like is we just sent some lions

to Britain over to South Africa to attack them, which, you know,

is not what's happened.

It's a combination of all the British hasn't happened the First Boer War.

Anyway,

but the British and Irish Lions is the rugby team made up of the best players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

Well, actually, technically, England, Wales and Ireland.

Scotland

didn't have anyone in the team, did they, mate?

In the end, no one made it until match day 22.

What's happening with that?

What's happened to your nation?

In rugby, I'm not sure.

They're not very good at rugby.

I thought that'd be clear.

Pretty good at dying of heart disease, though.

In the final warm-up game, it featured the traditional South African blurring of the distinction between the gentlemanly game of rugby football and grievous bodily harm.

So it set it up quite nicely for a feisty game on Saturday.

For the neutral, of course, much of the entertainment comes from the ugliness of Afrikaner names.

Although proof of the sea changes in South African rubbish is given by the fact that few, if any, of the current squad's names are true sonic abominations.

Certainly, Nalda said alongside previous great Springbok players such as Heike van Skleichenskweik, Schlocksy Hogenskock, Biles Hermes Hoekslaker, Flysick van Graft, Vomits Chanderpuk, Hokus Back Sackenkrack, and Hermi von der K.

It's not the prettiest language in the world.

Also, British Grand Prix this weekend, John, due to a clerical error.

The race due to be held on Sunday will not be held at the Silverstone racetrack.

It will instead be held on Hollywood actress Alicia Silverstone.

The chief executive.

That sounds horrible.

The chief executive of the British Racing Drivers Association, Kendall Polgerstike, said, We thought we'd booked Silverstone the racetrack, but it turned out it had already been booked out by the European Pantomime Horse Association for their annual motorbike jousting competition.

We had, in fact, booked Silverstone the actress.

She was pretty angry when she found out, but the money's good and she needs the work, so she's come round to it.

We've covered her entire mac head to toe, so she should be fine.

Plus, this track even curvier.

20 cars, John, are expected to reach speeds of up to 180 miles an hour down Silverstone's left leg, but overtaking could prove crucial on the slimly built, former third sexiest woman in the world.

So finally, just time for the bugle forecast.

Keep part of any audio newspaper.

The forecast this week, John, is will I get my Father's Day card from Matilda?

Absolutely not, Andy.

She's made it.

I don't know how much clearer she can be about whose card that is.

It's hers to give away.

And unless you buck your ideas up, you're not a fit recipient for that card.

I don't think Horace has made me one either.

It's been a real disappointment.

I delivered the little shit.

That's true, that is card-worthy.

Yeah,

he's never once said thank you.

Never once in his six months on this earth said thank you.

I'm a young people today.

Do keep your emails flooding in.

I've done to put into a blog at thebugle at TimesOnline.

Oh, you've completely washed your hands of it now.

I'm busy at the moment, mate, and there's a hell of a lot of sports on the television.

And do keep checking the website timesonline.co.uk slash thebugle.

Bye-bye.

Have a lovely week.

Cheerio.

This is a Times Online podcast.

For more podcasts, go to timesonline.co.uk forward slash podcasts.

Hi buglers, it's producer Chris here.

I just wanted to very quickly tell you about my new podcast Mildly Informed, which is in podcast feeds and YouTube right now.

Quite simply, it's a show where me and my friend Richie review literally anything.

So please come join us wherever you get your podcasts right now.